Psst, you can purchase the book at Amazon.com for only $18.45. Click on the book cover to be whisked away to Amazon.com to purchase the book.

(SI) Editor’s note: This review is comprised of analyses by four noted researchers of Bigfoot claims, each of whom was asked to briefly critique the book on their areas of expertise.

Matt Crowley previously worked as a pharmacist, sideshow performer, lamp builder and is now a certified welder. He has spoken at several sasquatch conferences on the topic of “Dermal Ridges and Casting Artifacts.”

Dermal Ridges

One of the main pieces of evidence for the claim that Bigfoot tracks exhibit dermal ridges is the “Onion Mountain” footprint, a thirteen-inch cast made by researcher John Green in August 1967. An additional set of tracks, the “Wrinkle Foot” casts, allegedly also display similar ridge patterns. The Wrinkle Foot set of prints were discovered by Paul Freeman. Photographs of the Onion Mountain and Wrinkle Foot casts appear on opposite pages of Meldrum’s book, and so allow for an easy comparison.

On May 29, 2005, Matt Crowley spoke at a Sasquatch conference in Bellingham, Washington, claiming that the unique surface textures of the Onion Mountain cast had a prosaic explanation; they were “casting artifacts.” basically, textures that closely resemble dermal ridges can sometimes spontaneously form on cement casts when the casts are made in very fine, dry soils, like those in which John Green found his tracks. The ridges that spontaneously form somewhat resemble the sand patterns that form on shallow beaches after the tide has gone out. In a surprising turn of events, Meldrum himself publicly proclaimed this hypothesis a “slam dunk.” Unknown to Crowley at the time, Meldrum had previously made test casts in fine Idaho loess soil that also exhibited casting artifacts.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Meldrum’s current treatment of the Onion Mountain cast in his book is something of a retrenchment from his “slam dunk” proclamation. If the casting artifact hypothesis is correct, then Chilcutt’s claim that the textures must represent Bigfoot’s dermal ridges is wrong, and rather spectacularly so. Indeed, Chilcutt previously set the stakes for himself very high, when he claimed (on the 2003 “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science” documentary) that he would “stake his reputation” on his dermal ridge interpretation.

The provenance and chain of custody of the Onion Mountain cast is even more fundamentally damning for Meldrum’s current position. What he claims is the original cast has clearly written “Onion Mountain” in ink on the cast itself. Yet until presented with evidence in the form of an e-mail from John Green, Chilcutt maintained that the cast had come instead from Northern California’s Blue Creek Mountain. It is not clear that Chilcutt even examined the cast that Meldrum claims is the original. If he did, why didn’t he use the unique, unambiguous nomenclature of “CA-19,” especially when multiple casts were made of that trackway? This would seemly be an obvious procedure for a veteran crime scene investigator such as Chilcutt.

Unfortunately for Bigfoot advocates, the situation is even more chaotic. John Green claims the original cast is lost. Thus the very provenance and chain of custody of a cast which Chilcutt has previously referred to as “the best one with the clearest dermal ridges” is in dispute. If this sort of “scientific evidence” was used in a legal trial, police detectives would be laughed out of court with such sloppy science and careless protocols. Yet this is typical of the evidence Meldrum and others proffer for Bigfoot.

Incredibly, a recent claim by Bigfoot advocate Rick Noll casts further doubt on the situation. Noll claims that John Green and Bob Titmus regularly scrubbed “surface imperfections” off of their casts with wire brushes. If so, thus calls into question the wisdom of Meldrum’s advocacy of yet another dermal ridge cast, one made by Bob Titmus in 1963.

As forensic or scientific evidence for Bigfoot’s dermal ridges, the Onion Mountain cast is tainted at the very root and so falls short of even minimum standards of what is considered scientific evidence. Because Meldrum selectively presents his experts and evidence, there is no hint in Sasquatch of the many problems associated with the dermal “evidence.” In view of Meldrum’s familiarity with – and acceptance of – Crowley’s experiments demonstrating serious problems with a cornerstone of dermal ridge evidence, his chapter on this topic is inexplicable. – Matt Crowley

You can read Benjamin Radford’s review of the book, the first part of the review here at Cryptomundo at Radford Reviews Meldrum.

Related Posts

26 Responses to “Matt Crowley Reviews Meldrum”

Well… of the three we’ve read so far, this is undoubtedly the clearest and best written. Again, however, it doesn’t seem to fall under the rubric of what one calls a “book review.” It’s still a criticism of Dr. Meldrum’s methodology. My point here is: call a spade a spade. If you promise a book review, deliver one. If you’re going to critique Dr. Meldrum’s work as a whole, citing examples from his latest book, then say that you’re doing so. You’d have got penalized by your teacher for having done it in elementary school… just because you’re adults, now, it doesn’t mean that simple rules don’t apply still.

That said, Crowley’s criticism of Dr. Meldrum focuses solely on one piece of evidence. The criticism is fair, certainly. It’s possible that somewhere along the line, evidence was mislabeled or mishandled — how many times does this occur in police investigations? In addition, Crowley doesn’t go so far as to say that the questionable nature of the Onion Mountain cast renders invalid other casts that exhibit dermal ridges. I do think, however, that this extension is implied, but I could be mistaken.

It’s also irresponsible of Crowley to make reference to his own experiments without citing a source — regardless of the fact that they’re his own experiments. How are skeptical readers supposed to inquire into his own work without a point of reference? His failure to do so makes this skeptic inquire as to whether Mr. Crowley himself has something to hide.

True, there’s some dark-side sliding and some audience-pandering. But generally Crowley makes points. My understanding is that he has always said that this is a potential problem, and that it doesn’t rule out dermal ridges as evidence, footprints as real and the sas as a real animal. Fair enough.

No one seems to mention here – and maybe it’s implicit but to many it won’t be – that casting artifacts AREN’T HOAXING. They are [poopie] happens. They don’t invalidate a trackway, and I know that Crowley would never say they did.

Elsanto’s comments are right on. None of these has truly been a “book review;” all have cherrypicked (and it does seem Meldrum leaves some cherries to be picked). I still have no idea in the world what this book is like, something a good book review provides. These do read more like selective axe-grinding. Probably the SI methodology of having each guy riff on his particular sas specialty (sas-cialty?) led to this. But book reviewers review books. In fact, this is a major problem I have with skeptical methodology. It reads too much like a pack of blind men around an elephant.

The prose gets a weetad too feverish, something I honestly didn’t expect from Matt. And as to this statement:

“As forensic or scientific evidence for Bigfoot’s dermal ridges, the Onion Mountain cast is tainted at the very root and so falls short of even minimum standards of what is considered scientific evidence.”

All I can say is what I have said all along:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE WHEN THERE IS NO TYPE TO COMPARE IT TO!

Scientific evidence is evidence that says: THIS is THAT. We don’t know what THIS is yet. And no footprint – no matter what we see or don’t see on it or on the cast – will provide that answer. Footprints can only be considered scientific evidence when they are commonly accepted as diagnostic of an animal’s presence. For whatever reasons of ignorance, irrationality, silliness, internecine warfare, etc., we are not there yet with the sasquatch. And we will not be until we find something more than a footprint.

I will say one thing. These reviews point up clearly why I call ’em the Relic Follies. Stop trying to track an animal by its 50-year-old prints in a drawer. Get in the field and find the animal. (One would think that would be the FUN part.)

I suppose it never hurts to add Dr. DWA’s Rule #145: Scientific evidence is whatever science says it is. Science has already said – loud and clear – that it doesn’t consider the tracks of the sasquatch evidence, of any kind.

I’m so spent from discussing these reviews from the other threads, I really just don’t know what to say. I agree that this one is easier to get through and perhaps a bit more focused than the others. As always, I appreciate the skeptical input and I think some points worthy of consideration were made here. However, I have to agree with my co-posters elsanto and DWA that this isn’t really a review of the book as a whole. Near as I can tell, this is a critique of one chapter.

I read the book. It makes a compelling case for the further serious study of the phenomena. I am not clear what these nitpicky critics are trying to accomplish. Shall all inquiry into this issue cease? Is the perspective of the skeptic gospel truth (I am not saying that it is for the advocate)? Whatever happened to the urge to discover, i.e., scientific curiousity? There is too much circumstantial evidence out there to label the entire phenomena a hoax or mass hallucination. That is not to say that it may prove to be a hoax or mass hallucination one day. I say just prove it! One way or the other. Let the scientific method run its course. The skeptics criticize but they cannot with absolute certainty close the door. I find their arrogance hilarious. Considering the way skeptics treat this issue, it is a miracle that the existence of giant squid was eventually confirmed.

Matt Crowley “was asked to briefly critique the book on (his area) of expertise”, and, since he “previously worked as a pharmacist, sideshow performer, lamp builder and is now a certified welder”, he sure has the creds to have “spoken at several sasquatch conferences on the topic of “Dermal Ridges and Casting Artifacts”, and to provide this well-written (altho perhaps a little too tightly focussed) “Book Review”.

Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody did some experimenting with track casting and found the best way to PREVENT casting artifacts, so we can avoid this kind of quibbling in the future?

How about a resin spray to lock the sand particles in place, so they won’t cluster into fake ridges?

How about a better casting medium, maybe more layers of resin, followed finally by a strengthening pour of something simple and inert?

I mean, if we truly want to do good science, and we truly want to cut the debunkers off at the knees, and we truly want to maximize our (expensive, exhausting, frustrating, discouragingly non-productive etc) time in the woods, we’ve GOT to start making progress in ALL the areas of Field (‘cuz that’s where Cryptids live!) Work!

How about a study of the best way to photograph a cryptid under unpredictable, but usually dark, conditions? Best film, best digital format, best way to preserve each for simple analysis to eliminate trickery?

How about finding better (and less expensive) night-vision and thermal gear?

What an interesting mess. I’ve been following this casting plaster artifact discussion for some time and it really gets no better. I mean that in a good way…sorta. Lost in the minutiae of plaster formulaes and dynamics and confusing provenience, the online discussion was a fantastic metaphor for the discussion between scientists and laymen (informed and otherwise) which takes place over issues as far ranging as evolution and nuclear energy to definition of a species.

As an artist in many media I have a ton of experience casting lots of different materials from bronze to wax to acrylics…and lots of plaster… and am so familiar with those crawling surface effects so that I presumed others examine the casts themselves would have been able to see the difference too. But evidently not. There is a LOT on miss-applied common sense when it comes to materials and techniques, let alone the interpretation.

Matt C’s thoughtful, intelligent and meticulously analyzed research is great…it didn’t change my mind, however, since the whole notion of dermatoglyphics were not instrumental in my thoughts about the existence of BF and its ilk, in the first place.

As curious as the possibility of dermatoglyphics, I was more surprised that soils and mud could hold the texture well enough to be seen or measured, but hey, whatever.

The connotation of the word “diversion” has two meanings. One, it is about being diverted and turned away from one’s purpose and chosen direction. Two, it is an interesting activity,ususally trivial but whose importance may be unknown or about which we’re unconscious as we do it, but because it is interesting we inevitably come away from it with a better understanding.

1) Does the sasquatch exist? That is, is the sasquatch a phenomenon external to the people who see, hear, smell or otherwise experience it?

2) If it exists, what is it? (P/G and the footprints say a primate, probably an anthropoid ape. But we don’t “know.”)

Nothing I’ve seen in these “reviews” of the book even touches on these questions, which from what I understand about the book is what it’s trying to answer.

If the point is finding out what the sasquatch is, hashing over footprints is a dead end. (Um, have I said that enough?) UNLESS you are following a fresh track, so fresh you can smell what made it, or a concentration of trackways in a relatively small geographic area, in pursuit of more substantive evidence.

Period.

We were talking about female researchers a few threads back. Here’s one place I think they can help: they don’t have the geeky male tendency to conduct fulsome rumination over pseudo-forensic evidence. They’re actually interested in the animal.

This could be as big a tempest – in as small a teapot – as I’ve seen.

Lookee that, dontmean2prymate! I’m hunting the sas, right here at this keyboard.

At least I’m doing more than these “reviewers” are. And I’m still trying to figure out what the heck it is they’re doing.

Oh, and really quick because it could be misunderstood, let me say what Meldrum’s book is.

It is the final frontier on footprints. THE ABSOLUTE LAST WORD. The dictionary, the encyclopedia, the video (really!), the t-shirt, the movie.

And I haven’t even read it!

So how do I know? Well first, how do these “reviewers” know, when their “reviews” don’t show any evidence of having read the book? OK, I’ll stop being a smart aleck. I have read enough of Meldrum’s work – and enough actual reviews of this book – to know that here’s his aim: to construct a nexus among the Patterson-Gimlin film; the many many many trackways across North America, all eerily, uncannily and yes unfakeably consistent; and the copious anecdotal evidence. His conclusion: no, we don’t have proof. But we have compelling evidence that an undocumented animal is out there.

Now let’s go find him.

Exactly.

And what’s being offered in the way of debunkery?

Um, you’ve read it.

Me, I’m gonna buy the book. Because until the animal’s documented…it’s the last word. Common sense tells me so.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I’ve uploaded numerous photographs to provide evidence of my claims. Unlike the brief SI review, some may find the website on the “wordy” side. Being that this process is apparently a novel one, involving “desiccation ridges”, I decided to err on the side of too much information rather than too little.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody did some experimenting with track casting and found the best way to PREVENT casting artifacts, so we can avoid this kind of quibbling in the future?”

Well, that’s actually well established, and the answer is “fixatives”. A fixative is something that holds the soil together and also interferes with the flow of the water from the cement slurry into the substrate. Hair spray is often used. Use of fixatives is standard operating procedure with the police when making casts.

Jimmy Chilcutt personally told me, on two occasions, that he was unfamiliar with desiccation ridge cast textures until I brought them to his attention. This is understandable, as being a police officer, he would utilize proper technique in his line of work. But John Green DIDN’T use a fixative when he made his cast.

To make this story as simple as possible, I think Chilcutt made a mistake in characterizing the textures as “dermal ridges” due to his unfamiliarity with what desiccation ridges actually look like.

Tube; your investigation has been really interesting. I’m an artist/sculptor and I’ve cast a number of different materials into this open face kind of set-up(no BF tracks, yet) and I’ve seen these sorts of reticulated structures expressed on the surface a variety of cast materials; epoxy, hot wax and even molten glass, and as you point out in your investigation, these ridges arise as a natural pattern in other circumstances where material is flowing under the influence of gravity and its own weight and you illustrate it with those ripples in sand (beautiful shot, by the way).

Since these rippled textures in other materials are not the result of desiccation ridge creeping, but rather seems to be due to a relationship of the surface tension and the viscosity of the flowing material, couldnt some of those textures your finding likewise be due to viscosity, rate of flow and surface tension?

I do see where a dry powdery surface could draw off water and thereby effect the surface tension at the contact zone, but even without that I would think that there would be these textures if the mix were too thick. So I’m curious as to how the fixative has worked.

I’ve followed a bit of the discussion while you were describing your experiments and never really heard a comparison to this kind of casting texture with other materials where desiccation wasn’t the likely cause.

In a plaster casting project, when I’m trying to cast an object in relief and trying to capture fine texture on any surface, which is normally the objective, the general approach is to mix the plaster to be relatively thin and splash it on carefully…as you’re doing this the plaster material will be hydrologically setting and becoming more viscous and by the time the surfaces have been covered with this thinner plaster, the progessively thicker remainder will back it up.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what I’m seeing with some casts where there are big concentric ripples radiating from the area where the pour initiated. I think you’d get some of those effects even if you poured it onto a sheet of steel.

Again, thanks for your work in that area. Appreciate your enlightening perspective. Cheers

“Since these rippled textures in other materials are not the result of desiccation ridge creeping, but rather seems to be due to a relationship of the surface tension and the viscosity of the flowing material, couldnt some of those textures your finding likewise be due to viscosity, rate of flow and surface tension?”

Perhaps. I don’t claim to know the exact mechanism of action of this process. At one time I called these textures simply “casting artifacts”, but I now call them “desiccation ridges”, as that is the terminology used by Dr. Anton Wroblewski. Being that what we are seeing here is some sort of macroscopic expression of inorganic chemistry, who better to offer an educated opinion than a PhD geologist. Some time ago he posted this on the JREF forum:

“I’ve made them in dry sand, on moist sand, on dry silt, and even dry mud. All it takes is some sort of dessicant in the matrix. This can be elevated salinity, or mineralogical composition as is the case when certain clay minerals like illite or kaolinite or smectite are present, or simply degree of dry-ness of the matrix. Very repeatable and very open-and-shut. The Onion Mtn. and other casts listed above show dessication, not dermals…case closed.”

Dogu4- Thank you especially for your thoughtful and insightful information on the nature of casts, textures, and materials. One great thing I love about this site is the things I learn here. Great insights and enlightening posts, as expected from you.

My reservations about the “review” aside, I consider you to have made a considerable contribution to sas research. I tend to forgive proponents like Meldrum and Krantz and Jimmy Chilcutt their occasional jumping to victorious conclusions. After dealing with the brickbats of scoftics and ignoramuses, one does, I am sure, feel the occasional urge to do a sack dance on their heads. It would appear that “dermal ridges” might have been a bit of a premature sack dance. It does seem to be odd, retro-reflecting on this, to consider such fine features as necessarily coming from the foot of the subject. In fact, hasn’t the purpose of casting always been to preserve the OUTLINE, not the fine dermal structure that is going to be imperfectly at best translated into the substrate by the animal?

I have always felt that the significance of tracks, as with sightings, is in their sheer volume, the very unlikely locations and length (for a hoax) of so many of them, and their tendency to an average or center line, with the kind of range and outliers one would expect from a diverse species on whom selective pressures aren’t really that great.

The significance of your work, I hope, is that proponents won’t keep grasping at little straws like this. There really doesn’t appear any need.

I have just this minute read in the technology section of todays Guardian newspaper about scientists using LIDAR (light detection and range) laser scanners to make perfect 3D digital iamges of dinosaur tracks (in Spain). Apparently, this technique has been used also to study preserved early native american human footprints in mexico, and is being developed for use by police forensics.

Professor Bennett from university of bournemouth (UK) says, “A footprint is essentially a 3-D object and if you treat it in only two dimensions then you are throwing away huge amounts of information. 3-D scans are telling you a huge amount about locomotion and the way in which a dinosaur or a human is moving”.

Dr Manning from Manchester university (UK), says “This is cold hard science, recorded in glorious 3-D”.

Why are we still messing about with plaster casts, and all their inherent problems. Move with the times people…

Incidentally, on Kathy Strain’s independent bigfoot researchers website (sorry, can’t remember the exact name or the web address- could some one remind us?) there is/was a very informative article reporting in great detail some experimental casting work (done, and presented, in a pretty sound scientific manner) in relation to dermal ridges and foot creases that I recommend everybody reads.

Read all four pieces of the Vol. 13, No. 3 May/June SI article. It is horrendous. The only one who made any sense was Michael Dennett. Ben’s was a gloss over with no substance. Matt’s was convoluted and very hard to follow and Daegling’s came out as bitter and defensive. Ben’s piece is the only one really about the book while the others seem to just pick on what they think is their expertise.

The original thought behind this book was as a companion piece for the DVD of the same name. If Dr. Meldrum was going to do a book on just his work I think it would have been to a much greater depth and not have covered as many topics as did the TV special for Discovery. As it is I think it is fine for its intended purpose, the book that is.

Of course Ben did mention that Jeff left out “a thorough and devastating analysis by Anton Wroblewski…” (). I was not aware of this analysis. I had heard that he was planning on publishing something but haven’t seen anything since. All I know is that the man declined to go on national TV being interviewed on his interpretation of the Skookum Cast. Ben did fail to mention that Jeff also did not include all the material that Owen Caddy produced from first hand experience with the original cast and not just an art piece depicting it. Remember that this was planned as a companion piece and that material wasn’t existing then.

Anton, if people would care to look for his postings on Bigfoot Forums, claimed that the cast was made undoubtedly by an elk. He failed to produce any original information proving this assertion except for some pictures of elk that he obtained from the internet. Apparently he has not seen an elk in the flesh. Anton is a scientist who looks at animal tracings and determines things from them, what I don’t really know since most of his work as really been about worms and he currently works in the oil industry.

He was offered an all-expense paid trip to the Seattle area to view the original cast in person and interview myself but declined stating he had seen enough with the art piece shown at a Texas museum recently. Art really is in the eye of the beholder.

From personal recollection and experience, I was under the impression that Matt Crowley previously stated that he was suddenly retiring from Bigfoot research altogether, (hidden in the public record on BFF.COM I believe) under suspicious circumstances, about 4 months ago. Now he appears to be making a liar out of himself by sticking his head back in, except now he appears to be playing for the opposition. I was also under the impression that the suspicious circumstances, was job pressure from the local old boys network (aka, Local Bigfoot Bigots Club), as in, “get out of proving Bigfoot exists or lose your job and career”. So now not too surprisingly, his new opinions seem to be compatible with the possible approval of that presumable local old boys network.

From personal experience of having showed him face to face, an 8 megapixel picture of what I would describe as the world’s closest paranormal eyeshine photo, his actions at the time were as follows. He was seated at the same table as Ray Crowe and myself. He pulled out his pocket magnifying glass and examined the 16″x20″ photograph for presumably photoshopping type lines and patterns, and also examined the enlargement of the two sets of two apparent eyes from presumably two paranormal wood gnomes. He then stated, “that’s not photoshopped, that’s something!”

Several months later when this subject came up on the AIBR forum, just before most discussion completely died there, Mr. Crowley stated that he would never make such a statement about a photograph from someone he did not know, or close to that effect. Furthermore, he then proceeded to get myself permanently kicked off of that forum for introducing a subject that did not clearly reinforce the existence of a 24/7 flesh and blood Bigfoot.

So I have fond memories of Mr. Matt Crowley and his apparent ability to make multiple contradictory statements. Contradictory statements is how attorneys like to prove that a witness is committing perjury. Once a witnesses testimony is considered perjurous, that testimony is thrown out entirely, and the witness prosecuted to the full extent of the law.